Call it “not doing my homework” or being mildly oblivious and overly busy, but I walked into Motor City not knowing it had a crazy gimmick. I knew that it was a revenge-action soap opera starring the endlessly endearing man-mountain Alan Ritchson. I did not know it was dialogue-free (or insanely close to it). In a way, this was a great test to see if the central conceit felt forced or seemed natural and cool.

“Hey wait a minute,” I thought after like the third scene in a row where people were just about to have a conversation but then the door closed and we had to watch them gesticulate at each other through a window as imprecisely chosen classic rock songs played. “What’s going on here?” I asked myself when the characters repeatedly raised their eyebrows and gestured at stuff instead of using their words. “Oh, I get it!” I internally declared after realizing this would basically be a slow-motion mime fight.

The plot certainly didn’t need many words. In the late 1970s, John (Ritchson), an ex-con freshly off parole, is about to propose to his girlfriend, Sophia (Shailene Woodley). Unfortunately, Sophia’s gangster ex-boyfriend, Reynolds (Ben Foster), plants drugs in John’s car. Corrupt cops lock Johnny up, and he get sentenced to 25 years. As Reynolds slides back into Sophia’s life, John plans his escape and revenge.

What a truly, singularly weird movie Motor City is. The no-talking thing is dumb. It could have been fine in an up-tempo action ballet, but everything actually felt leaden and longer here without dialogue. The endless slo-mo sequences of silent yelling, set to what had to be simply the best music from the 1970s they could afford to clear, is grating.

That should be that, and this should be logged as an embarrassing misfire that ranks as one of the worst of the year. And yet! Ritchson, Woodley, and Foster go for it and absolutely “get it.” They play against the broad strokes and archetypes of the oft-oft-oft repeated American revenge flick. They don’t so much comment on it as leverage our familiarity with the tropes in a “unique” way. It’s “dumb opera.” Or as people I know who hate the opera call it: “the opera.”

Director Potsy Ponciroli, a name I had to repeatedly check was not one of the characters in his film, was clearly going for a very specific vibe. That vibe sucks. At least, it sucks at this duration. It feels like a nearly two-hour montage, which is just far, far too long for a montage. The result is oddly exhausting but also weirdly watchable.

To put a bow on it: Motor City is bad. Things that could have helped: better music choices, savvier and more creative ways to avoid dialogue, and a playful or energetic tone that wasn’t basically “what if a flashback from 1994’s The Crow was set to Nights in White Satin.” And yet! I didn’t hate it so much as I just want to walk away in slow motion as an explosion occurs behind me, set to something like Steely Dan’s fifth best song or something.

Grade = C-

Other Critical Voices to Consider

Siddhant Adlakha at IGN says “Motor City makes for an engaging experience, if only because it forces its author and audience alike into a somewhat non-traditional mode of filmmaking and viewing. It shouldn’t be this out of the ordinary for an American action flick to depend on visual cues, but in an increasingly homogenized action landscape, watching body language, blocking, and editing tell a story is a delight unto itself.”

Casey Chong at Fortress of Solitude says “the distinctive characteristics of heavily stripped-down dialogue don’t always work as expected, while the cumbersome plot overstretches for its own good. Still, Alan Ritchson’s no-frills tough-guy persona and Potsy Ponciroli’s direction in the unflinching third act showcase his directorial flair for hard-hitting action set pieces.”

Marissa Hill at Shade Studios says “It feels like a gritty MTV music video fused with old-school revenge flicks like something from Sisu set against that worn-down ’70s Detroit grit.”